As the clips are downloaded gradually they do not affect your PC's efficiency and can be played at your convenience. I tried it out on a slow dialup connection in Bombay that was being shared by five people simultaneously. The experience was surprising. The good part: CameoCast is free. The player weighs about 13.92 MB. But downloads are smooth. Once on your desktop, it can display video at 30 frames per second in a 540 x 360 pixels window. This happens at a data rate that is over 1 megabit per second, or over 20 times greater than regular video streaming on a dialup connection.

This is the first product of Cameo Technologies Inc, a California based software and services company founded in 2000. Cameo President Matt Milne said in a press release, "We know from consumer research that PC users who seek video entertainment on the Web would prefer to have it delivered directly to their PCs at a quality level. Cameo's customers - content owners and marketers - are looking for new ways to engage audiences and create awareness for their brand and content. The CameoCAST product achieves this through a model similar to broadcast TV - free to users, supported by content owners."

This serves both ends: users benefit from high quality video, while entertainment companies get their trailers and promos across to the viewing public. Their first major customer is Universal Pictures, a unit of Universal Studios. Kevin Campbell, a Universal vice-president, called the product a tool to "engage our audiences directly on their PCs… at the highest video quality possible rather than sacrificing a full entertainment experience for viewers through a small streaming Web window." Universal's promotional content, such as trailers from upcoming DVD and VHS feature film releases, is now broadcast to CameoCast users.

Customers can also receive feedback about user preference through content interest selections: When users interact with the content and list the type of clips they prefer, their interests are captured and an aggregate is made available to the customer for a fee.

Claiming to provide personalised digital video entertainment to consumers, CameoCast gives users the option of playing the console at system start-up or whenever the screensaver is activated. You can view the demo to see how it works and then download it. However, it is necessary to have already installed, at least, Internet Explorer 4.0 and Windows Media Player 6.4. As of now CameoCast is not Mac compatible.

Speaking about video entertainment on the PC, Scott Ross, who is on the Cameo board, emphasised: "CameoCast is an exciting and unique product that will offer a great deal to the entertainment industry." And as of now, that's all it offers: the main beneficiaries will be entertainment firms like movie studios, while users only have access to promotional content such as posters, clips and behind-the-scenes shots.

However, Peter Quill, vice-president of marketing, says CameoCast is not limited to promotional content. He claims they have "chosen to focus on short-form content rather than feature-length content based on user behaviour and input". He goes on to add that, "If in the future the market dictates that we offer long-form content like feature films, we will re-evaluate our offering and adjust accordingly."